Summa S2 not lifting knife high enough

[kanini]

We have a Summa S2 D160 (drag knife) and I absolutely love the machine, does great work except for one thing:
We print on Substance material and laminate with a very thick Substance laminate (for those not knowing Substance it's material for motorcross motorcycle decals etc. so thick stuff). We use the brass holder with sandblast knife but when it travels across the media the knife sometimes drags across/touches the media creating unwanted streaks/cuts. Is there a way to adjust how high it lifts the knife when travelling "empty" without cutting? By hand you can lift it much more so mechanically it could do it?
Thanks for any ideas!

 

[PHILJOHNSON]

Hi Kanini,

I would consider adding additional pinch wheels, or what we call "media select assemblies", to your cutter to reduce the span distances between pinch wheels. Because the laminate you are using is very thick and rigid it tends to pucker and create high points between the pinch wheels and this high point is where your blade is scratching the material surface. Nearly every customer I work with that is cutting these motocross kits in the US adds at least one extra wheel, if not more than one.

I would contact your Summa distributor for information and pricing for adding additional wheels.

Regards,

Phil Johnson
Summa Inc.

 

[AF]

In addition to the above, you can do a few more things to help:

1. Block off any exposed vacuum holes with tape
2. Reverse-wind the material to take out any curl
3. Use infeed and outfeed tables to keep the material flat

 

[kanini]

Thank you for both great replies, we've earlier thought about the extra pinch wheels and I'll definately look into that, thank you! Great to get response so quickly from Summa!

Also great idea about the feed tables, since the problem is the material puckering up between pinch rollers.

Thank you both again!

 

[stxrmxn]

BUT is there a way to raise the knife like the poster asked, the graphtec has this option. Is it availabe on these cutters or not?

 

[iPrintStuff]

I’d say no. As much as it seems it, the issue is that the media is coming up to the blade, not the blade being too low to hit the media.

We added the extra pinch rollers and haven’t had that issue since. The only thing you can do is try slowing the cutter down a bit, that alleviated the issue for us.